Winter Harvest
by eusocialdragon
Summary: Rukia finds herself in the future with no powers and no memory of how she got there. Can she and her 'friend', Senna stop an old/new enemy from ressurecting Xcution and invading Soul Society? And where do the mysterious Harvesters fit into this?


This is another Bleach story that came from a strange idea I had.

Disclaimer: Bleach and all characters in it is owned by Tite Kubo and Shonen Jump magazine. This story is not being written for profit, but simply to have some fun; reviews and constructive criticism are more than welcome (in the case of the latter, don't worry about being blunt, but please don't be abusive), while flames will be ignored.

The story is essentially a mish-mash: one part mystery, one part supernatural, and one part friendship, with some sci-fi blended in. Rukia's the primary viewpoint character, and she and Senna are friends – this is not a yuri fic (not that I have a big problem with them, it's just I wanted to make that clear up front about this story).

The rating I'm aiming for is 'T'; there will be strong language, violence and suggestive themes. Basically it will be about like the main Bleach series in this respect.

As for the use of Japanese in this story: this is a story about Japanese characters in Japan, so I will have some conventions of the language, such as naming (family name first, given name second) and honorifics (-san, -sama, -chan and -kun, as well as titles like -taichou); otherwise, I plan to use terms that one would hear in the English dub.

I'm not sure if there's going to be any romance in this story; there will be some implied IchiRuki, of course, but beyond that...you'll all find out as soon as I do. :)

Well, I think that's about it. Here's the first chapter, and I hope you all like it!

* * *

**Winter Harvest**

* * *

_"Bring them into the twilight, Mirokumaru!"_

The words cut through the blackness of Rukia's mind like a lightning bolt arcing through clouds. They were so bright and clear, and then they disappeared and she was left trying to hold onto them.

But she couldn't...so she didn't...

She simply let her body rest – it didn't want to move, anyway – and let her mind wander. Now that she'd heard those words, some part of her mind was beginning to work at its normal speed again. And she could hear other things.

She heard the clang of metal on metal. She heard people moving and shouting...she thought it was in Japanese, but she couldn't understand a word. That part of her mind was still off-line she guessed.

And besides, the noises sounded distant and fuzzy, though for some reason Rukia had the idea they weren't coming from _that_ far away.

Rukia checked to see if her other senses were working...

She could smell cool moisture in the air...and dust...from brick or concrete she couldn't tell. The air felt cool as well; in fact she could feel herself shivering just a little. And she could feel...

She could feel the muffled pain coming from the blow to her head.

The realization energized her mind further. That was why she was on the...ground, or maybe pavement...and her body didn't want to move. Yes, she could feel the bruising and scrapes on her body that came with falling on the ground like a sack of vegetables.

And she was wearing...a blouse and skirt of some sort...? And she could feel knee-high socks and Western shoes on her feet...?

Was she in a gigai...?

Rukia wasn't sure about anything except her head...

_"Shinigami bitch...!"_

A different voice this time; the first had been a young woman, a teenager...this one was older, harsher, rougher. She sounded like someone from the slums or Rukongai...

The sounds of fighting were getting clearer, more distinct. Sounds of metal ringing as it struck more metal, sounds of wind blowing and things sliding across stone and being thrown against it, sounds of people dodging and weaving to hit their opponent and avoid being hit...

They weren't getting closer, Rukia knew; her mind was simply beginning to pull itself back together.

She decided to open her eyes, and see what that would do.

It took a great effort of will; her body didn't want to respond to her mind. It felt so good to just be lying inert, letting not a single muscle move. But she needed to do this, and so she kept trying until she could feel eyelids open and some light begin to seep into her mind.

Rukia had only managed to open her eyes a crack, and all she could see was dark gray and some light that was probably from illumination.

It was night then... And for some reason, Rukia felt that it was well into autumn...

More clashes of steel...and now the wind was picking up...

No, it was strong gusts of wind, coming from somewhere else. And now that her hearing was getting even better and her mind was clearing, she could swear that wind was being _used_ to pick up and hurl things at great speed...

What was going on...?

Rukia lay there for another second or two, gathering her strength and focusing it into the core of her being. She would only get one shot at this...

She waited another moment, and then hurled the energy into her body, willing, _hoping_ that it would respond.

It did, and slowly muscles and tendons began to move. Rukia's arms began to slide back, centimeter by centimeter even as her legs began to tense and brace themselves. Then her torso began to move, though her stiff body made a strenuous protest about what she was doing.

She ignored it, and after a moment, she could feel the pressure on her face and chest begin to relax and drift away as she pushed herself up onto her arms and legs. Rukia was shaky at first and for a moment she thought she was going to fall back onto the concrete. She braced herself, and once the shaking stopped, she finished the maneuver.

In the background, Rukia could hear the clash getting more strenuous; whoever those two women were, they were really going at it. Even more than her weakness and the shock of injury, her heart was racing at the idea that she could be in the middle of a battle.

With no weapon of any kind...

She slowly turned her head left...right...raised it a little; all the while looking for...

What was she looking for...a weapon...a...so-...a sleeve...?

She couldn't remember...

Rukia _could_ hear the combatants more clearly.

"That's it!"

It was the second woman, the one with the foul mouth.

There was a pause...

"Rejoice, Santa Margarita!"

And then Rukia could hear a small explosion, a fact that seemed to be confirmed by a burst of white light and a rush of air too forceful to be natural. She worried, but then realized that there was a barrier of some kind...the remnants of a brick wall...that was shielding her.

Thanking the gods for small favors, Rukia inched her hands back towards her knees, slowly tilting her body upright in the process. It hurt, especially her head which she could now tell was still bleeding a little, but she had to know what was going on.

As she finally got her head and body upright, Rukia breathed a sigh of relief. Almost as though she'd blown out a candle, the bright light winked out, and she was left blinded in the dim night.

Rukia couldn't see for a moment, but she could hear, and it didn't sound pleasant. She could hear the tearing of flesh, and the singing of metal running on metal. And she could hear the woman screaming in...Rukia couldn't tell if it was agony or ecstasy. It may have been both.

Rukia's vision returned more quickly than she thought it would, and she slowly forced herself to start crawling to the barrier. It was only a little taller than she was now, if she could just...

"Now, let's see if you can chew what you just bit off, little girl!"

There was a pause, and then the fighting started again in earnest. Rukia could hear the older woman give a guttural battle cry, and then there was the clang of steel again, harder, faster, more vicious.

She could hear the desperate grunting of the younger woman; she was probably trying to keep up with what was now a much more formidable opponent.

It made Rukia all the more anxious to see what was going on, and she was now awake enough to curse herself for being in this body and for being without a weapon.

For the first time it occurred to her: did she have her Soul Candy?

No...she didn't feel this...school outfit, she supposed...had any pockets.

She looked around her on the dusty concrete or asphalt or...whatever the hell she was on...trying to find the little dispenser with a cartoon animal head on it. But there wasn't enough light; it _was_ night or maybe late evening, and the light she could see was the soft glow cast by the moon. It gave everything here a bluish-gray tint, and with all the dust...

Rukia heard the younger girl cry out in pain, at the same time the sound of tearing cloth made its way around the area. And then came a feral laugh.

"Not such hot shit now, are we, pretty girl?"

Rukia looked around herself even more desperately now.

"I'm still here...old lady. Talk...about your victory...when you have it..."

Damn it, wasn't there anything-?

Even as the fighting started up again, Rukia cast her eyes further afield, trying to find something. Now she could see that she was in some fairly confined area – a wide alleyway or abandoned lot. She didn't see any signs of habitation; in fact, she could see the irregular lines of broken stone or brickwork and the odd tuft of grass poking through the man-made materials.

They were in some kind of abandoned area, then. There would likely be no help, and no one would probably notice what was going on; she got the feeling they were a fair distance from civilization.

So what to do, what to-?

A shape almost mystically appeared in the rubble strewn on the ground; it had always been there, but Rukia only just now noticed it, like green fruit in a tree.

It was maybe a meter away...a body, covered in dark, tattered clothes...

Rukia stopped for a moment, and her blood chilled a little.

Was that the body of another shinigami? Had she almost been...?

And then her blood ran even colder as she noticed a hand and the shape of its head...

Even though they were in an advanced state of decay, dissolving into the night, she could tell that whatever it was hadn't been human.

A Hollow of some sort then; it didn't matter too much, as the thing was dead, and she needed to look for-

A long, stick-like object lay on the ground near the figure, and it hit Rukia what it was, even as she couldn't get her thinking brain to to _say_ what it was.

She slowly moved towards it, and then grabbed hold of it.

Almost immediately Rukia felt a small pull; she almost let go and jerked away from it as she realized the object was trying to absorb her energy. Then she heard the fighting continue to intensify; she couldn't afford to be picky, and somehow she wasn't too disturbed by what the stick was doing.

Rukia tightened her grip and then dragged it and herself slowly towards the barrier.

She brought herself up to the wall, careful not to raise her head above it while another spasm of pain shot through her head. She bit off a hiss, hoping nobody noticed; she doubted either of the two combatants would care, but she couldn't take the chance in her condition.

Rukia waited until the pain faded and then took a deep breath to steady herself.

And then she slowly lifted her head and, bracing herself on the barrier, peered over the wall.

There were two figures moving around in a larger portion of what Rukia could only consider an empty lot.

One of them was obviously a shinigami, her shoulder-length dark hair flowing like the folds of her black robes and the red silk ribbon around her waist. In her hand was a long metal staff with a ring on one end and a spear point on the other. Rukia could see the tears in the girl's clothes, as well as the blood on them and on the ground.

Around her swirled funnels of wind, sweeping across the ground at what seemed like the girl's command. They kept picking up debris, swirling it around, and then throwing it at...

Rukia gasped as she saw the thing the shinigami was fighting...or at least tried to see. The bad light and the jumbled landscape, not to mention her injury, were making it hard for Rukia to tell what she was dealing with.

But she could make out a female figure covered in tattered and stained dark clothing, a flowing mane of red hair around her as she...

Rukia couldn't quite remember what the name of the technique was, but the other woman was vanishing and reappearing, dodging the debris thrown at her from the shinigami. In each of...four?...arms, she could see the flashing glint of metal and the trailing of what looked like dark ribbons from each hand.

How those things didn't get caught up in anything was a mystery right now, and Rukia didn't care.

She did care about the gleam of yellow in the woman's eyes, and the shape of sharp white bone around her limbs and framing her head. And even from here Rukia could feel the dank strength of the woman's reiatsu.

Rukia knew she needed to do something, she just knew...

And, looking at the rod in her hands, she knew she had the means to do so.

Still trying to keep the pain from overwhelming her again, Rukia slowly raised the rod and lay it down on the piece of wall in front of her. Even as she did so, the two women continued their fight, an engagement that looked almost like dancing to her mind.

She closed her eyes for a moment to break the spell; Rukia couldn't afford to be distracted at this point.

Taking a deep breath and exhaling, Rukia did her best to calm herself and then opened her eyes again and steadied the rod. She let her energy flow into the thing, and she knew somehow that she was charging it.

It scared her that she knew these things without knowing what was going on...

She watched again as the two combatants went back and forth, swinging staff and blades, dancing through the debris being kicked up and created by the winds blowing through the area.

The monster dodged one wind funnel, and then another; the shinigami spun around and around as she went, shifting her balance, and seemingly trying not to let her wounds affect her movements.

But she was slowing down, and Rukia knew that the monster had healed _her_ wounds with the release of her blade.

She didn't know what was going on, but Rukia felt she'd figure it out when this was all over.

Right now, she needed to kill this thing in front of her...

She aimed...waited...tried not to think about the weirdness of it all or the pounding in her head...

Then the monster stopped for a moment.

_Now!_

Rukia just...'commanded' the rod somehow, and a moment later a bright gleam ran down the length of the thing. The far end lit up, and then a burst of blue light shot out from the front, headed straight for the Hollow-woman.

The light bullet struck the woman square on one of her shoulders, tearing through the fabric and sending a spray of blood through the air.

Immediately the woman clapped a hand on the injury, and turned to glare at where the shot had come from.

So did the shinigami, but only for a moment; then she turned her attention back on her opponent.

"Looks like you're outnumbered, Michaella. What are you going to do now?"

The...Hollow-woman...Rukia couldn't remember what the term was...looked at her, and then looked at the shinigami, and then backed up into the darkness. Before Rukia could tell what was happening, this...'Michaella' and her reiatsu vanished.

Rukia stopped sighting for a moment, wondering if the battle was over, but the other shinigami...Rukia couldn't quite pull the girl's name out of the fog that still remained in her head...was still on guard. Rukia felt she should be the same way; she felt the tactic was familiar, she felt she should know this person they were fighting...

She felt she should _hate_ this Michaella...

The girl in the lot was tensing, looking around, waiting for whatever attack was going to come.

Rukia followed suit, steadying the weapon on the wall again, and getting ready for whatever was going to come next.

Then the girl seemed to see Rukia, and she looked at her for a moment with a reassuring face.

And then the girl's eyes went wide with horror...

It happened in slow motion.

Rukia suddenly realized she should turn around...

She did so...

And saw a hole in the air had opened up behind her, a hole that had only an inky blackness on the other side.

And then a figure stepped out of it, a monster that had a resemblance to a handsome woman in the moonlight.

One who suddenly had a look of curiosity and recognition in her golden eyes.

"You...you know him, don't you? Where is he...? Where is the young prince?"

Rukia had absolutely no idea what the woman was talking about, and so she said nothing.

After a moment, 'Michaella' seemed to resign herself to the fact that she wasn't getting an answer. She raised one arm, purple ribbon trailing from what Rukia could see now was the opposing crescents of a deer-antler blade...

"Say goodbye, little girl...!"

And then the woman's body twisted as she brought the blade down at Rukia, throwing her whole weight into it.

Rukia couldn't do anything, she could only sit on the pavement, seeing her end coming towards her...

Wondering what she'd done to deserve this...

"_RUKIA!"_

The girl's voice sounded from far away it seemed, and neither Rukia nor her would-be killer paid it any mind.

All that mattered to Rukia was the blade that was coming to end her life, and the fact that she couldn't get the gigai she was in to do anything...

The wind picked up, and Michaella paused, concern crossing her face as a high-pitched cry of desperation and rage sounded from the lot.

And then the world exploded...

And Kuchiki Rukia was hurled back into the darkness...

* * *

Author's Note: Some people may wonder what my theory for Senna's survival might be (at least as far as this story). What I'm using is this...

There was an actual 'individual Senna' stuffed somewhere in the composite being that was the Shinenju and that became that entity's dominant personality (not unlike the case with the Arrancar). This 'individual Senna' was liberated into the re-incarnation cycle when the Shinenju died, and has now re-appeared in the Living World (and there's also the fact that we never _did_ hear who Mirokumaru actually belonged to...).


End file.
